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Bikini Atoll testing documents declassified after 70 years

Secret documents relating to the bombing on Bikini Atoll have been declassified by the US National Security Achieves, revealing the true horror the testing exposed servicemen and the Pacific 70 years ago.

Unedited footage, as well as a collection of photos and other documents on the Operation Crossroads tests was released online in July to coincide with the anniversary of the 1946 incident.

The first test, codenamed Able, comprised of a 23 kiloton fission bomb, said to be almost identical to the bomb dropped on Japan’s Nagasaki in August 1945. The second test, codenamed Baker, was the most dangerous as it contaminated nearby test ships with radioactive mist, the documents show.

So devastating was the contamination that ships became “radioactive stoves and would have burned all living things aboard with invisible and painless but deadly radiation”.

In one of the more than 30 released documents, a note on an aerial photo described the moment of impact of the Baker bomb as a blast of boiling water, steam and “radioactive substance” that resembled “a huge toy balloon”.

In another, the then-commander of the Royal Australian Naval Attache, Stanley Herbert King Spurgeon, was quoted as observing the tests from a naval ship. He was said to have had “only the foggiest idea of the mechanisms involved in the atomic bomb project”.

Meanwhile, Simon Peter Alexandrov, a Soviet Union observer from the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, remarked the purpose of the Bikini test was “to frighten the Soviets”.

However, Mr Alexandrov is said to have stated that the Soviets weren’t “not afraid” and had their own “wonderful planes” to easily bomb US cities.

The USS Agerholm in the foreground of the Baker dome. (National Security Archive)

The US Navy conducted the Bikini tests to measure the effects of atomic explosions on warships and other military targets over fears it would not survive an atomic war.

Before the tests, the Navy permanently removed 167 Pacific islanders from Bikini, their ancestral home, without their prior knowledge. The islanders were of the belief they would be able to return to their home after the testing. However, the nukes rendered them uninhabitable.

More than 42,000 US military and civilian personnel partook in preparations and activities relating to the Atoll tests.

The documents revealed part of their work included deploying military equipment to be exposed to the tests, with the Army alone allocating 3000 personnel to measure damage to army equipment exposed to the explosion.

Sailors wash down the highly contaminated deck of the captured German battleship USS Prinz Eugene (IX 300) after the Baker explosion. The ship was so radioactive that it was later sunk. (National Security Archive)

The fleet of target ships included 94 aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and landing craft, among other ships. Three German and Japanese warships captured during the war were among the ships to be targeted, the released NSA documents found.

The testing cost about $2.2 billion in today’s money, making it the most expensive nuclear test event in history.